Einheri's Channel

Many people in our circles hold that the ancients wanted us to believe the ancient lore literally. So let us take a look at one of the most archaic European traditional lore that is available to us. Hesiod begins his Theogony with the words "Let us begin to sing from the Heliconian Muses" and likewise he references the Muses at the end of this work. He begins his Works and Days with "Muses, from Pieria, glorifying in songs, come here, tell in hymns of your father Zeus, through whom mortal men are unfamed and famed alike, and named and unnamed, by the will of great Zeus." In (22) he explains why he has done this, and that it is the Muses who sing through him, he says "they breathed a divine voice into me, so that I might glorify what will be and what was before, and they commanded me to sing of the race of the blessed ones who always are, but always to sing of themselves first and last." But in this same passage the Muses proclaim "we know how to say many false things similar to genuine ones, but we know, when we wish, how to proclaim true things." Here, Hesiod doesn't only reference his own works, but all that was produced thanks to the Muses. But what this implies is that Hesiod instructs the traditional poems should at the very least be viewed critically. This affirms that the traditional lore cannot simply be all accepted as completely literally true according to him. And thus, it must be interpretted critically.

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This is what's holding the pagan revival back.

Plato, Laws V, 729c: "If a man honors and respects his relatives, who all share the worship of the family gods and have the same blood in their veins, he can reasonably expect to have the gods of birth look with benevolence on the procreation of his own children."

Likewise, ancestor veneration is found in Christian texts forbidding the ordinary people from practicing it in Christianized England, where it is a remnant of the pre-Christian religion (texts are from 7-10th centuries). Canons of Theodore (Paenitentiale Theodori), B78.01.03: "Whoever burns corn for the health of the living where dead men are buried must fast for 7 years." Scriftboc (formerly Confessionale Pseudo-Ecgberhti), X16.03.01: "Whoever burns grain in a place where a man died in order to give health to living men and to the house, he is to fast five years." Canons of Alfric, Of the Synod of the Priests, 35, the priest are instructed when attending a funeral of ordinary people: "Ye shall not rejoice on account of men deceased, nor attend on the corpse unless ye be thereto invited; when ye are thereto invited, then forbid ye the heathen songs of the laymen, and their loud laughs; nor eat ye, nor drink where the corpse lies therein, lest ye be imitators of the heathenism which they there commit."

Plato, Laws I, 626e: "[...] a man wins the first and best of victories — over himself. Conversely, to fall a victim to oneself is the worst and most shocking thing that can be imagined."

Plato, Laws IV, 716d-717b: "If a good man sacrifices to the gods and keeps them constant company in his prayers and offerings and every kind of worship he can give them, this will be the best and noblest policy he can follow; it is the conduct that fits his character as nothing else can, and it is his most effective way of achieving a happy life. [...] After these gods, a sensible man will worship the spirits, and after them the heroes. Next in priority will be rites celebrated according to law at private shrines dedicated to ancestral gods. Last come honors paid to living parents." Plato establishes in the Laws that it is proper for a man to not only give worship to the Gods, but also to the spirits [daimons, these would be roughly equivalent to the elves, but also the various land-wights], the heroes [great and distinguished men who achieved triumphs] and next the ancestral Gods, meaning the departed ancestors. And lastly he establishes a filial piety even towards the living elders of the family. All these honors are in their proper hierarchical order. This is the very basic structure of proper ancestor veneration.

I've seen that some people think that there's no evidence of any ancestor veneration in the Germanic sources. This is of course not true. If we take a look at Scandinavia, ancestor veneration was a big part of people's lives, because it did not stop with Christianization, in fact it continued into the early modern period, and even as late as the 19th century in Scandinavia. Ancestor veneration in this case seems to be particularly connected with howes (grave mounds, ON haugar, sg. haugr), where the dead ancestors were buried. Numerous medieval law codes from 13-14th centuries ban people from making sacrifices and saying prayers at howes and harrows (ON hǫrgar, sg. hǫrgr), or list these as places where it is illegal to worship. Among these we find the 13th century King Magnús Hákonsson's Law, Law of Gotland, the Norwegian Older Gulathing Law or King Sverrir's Christian Law. But even though ancestor veneration became illegal with Christianization, the importance to know where one's ancestors lie continued to be a legal necessity. If one wanted to possess hereditary land (ON óðal), they needed to name their paternal ancestors five generations back. The howes served as physical evidence in these cases. Ancestor veneration and the departed ancestors are seen as intimately linked with the social issues of the living. Ancestor veneration is especially connected to family morality, but it may be connected to group membership, identity, politics, health, prosperity and so the ancestors are to be offered to for these purposes.

Xenophanes, Fragments, 18: “In the beginning the gods did not at all reveal all things clearly to mortals, but by searching men in the course of time find them out better.”

Do you believe war and conflict are bad? Aren't war and conflict a fundamental part of earthly existence? Why would the Gods institute these basic facts of life as fundamental if they were bad? Why would the Gods give victory to the most warlike of men? Wouldn't this imply the Gods to be bad as well? Do the heroic poems lie when they say the fallen heroes and kings join the High God in his Halls? Do you regard one's self-sacrifice on the battlefield as evil? Do you not regard yourself as cowardly? Can you imagine a better death? War and conflict are a fundamental part of earthly existence and one can achieve divine blessings by taking part in them, and if he does not, he is rewarded with slavery and his descendants will view him as a coward, that is, if he has any. To sacrifice oneself on a battlefield is the greatest death one can achieve and his sacrifice on the altar of Earth will surely lead him to the Halls of the exalted Gods. A blessing reserved only for the most distinguished men today.

The sacrifices were instituted by the Gods themselves, and the existence of the cosmos itself is a result of the overflowing goodness of the Gods, who performed the first sacrifice and shaped it. Now, why would the Gods institute animal sacrifices among men if they were bad or wrong? Or do the ancients lie when they tell us these were instituted by the Gods? Moreover, are basically all the ancients wrong and bad for performing animal sacrifices according to the ancient custom? In your own arrogance, do you think the noble kings of old who sacrificed dozens of animals at a single festival were evil? There is nothing fundamentally evil about death. The soul of the sacrificed animal goes to that God to whom it is sacrificed. The people who perform sacrifices according to the appropriate liturgy are blessed by the Gods because of their imitation of the divine. Yet, most neo-pagans don't sacrifice animals at all, which is quite a shame.

Attention ⚠ I will achieve a new level of silliness this year. I shall give everyone in my family and my close friends one of those miniature IKEA gnomes as a Yule gift 🧙🏼 This is your reminder that shitposting is an ancient Germanic tradition.

Julius Caesar, Commentary on the Gallic War, c. 4, Customs of the Germans: "Those who preserve their chastity longest are most highly commended by their friends; for they think that continence makes young men taller, stronger, and more muscular. To have had intercourse with a woman before the age of twenty is considered perfectly scandalous." Typical Germanic wisdom 👏👏👏

Plato, Phaedo, 85c-d: "One should achieve one of these things: learn the truth about these things or find it for oneself, or, if that is impossible, adopt the best and most irrefutable of men’s theories, and, borne upon this, sail through the dangers of life as upon a raft, unless someone should make that journey safer and less risky upon a firmer vessel of some divine doctrine."

Hello. I've been seeing some pretty cringe stuff here on telegram recently, so I figured I might start a channel to piss some people off. The purpose of this channel is quite clear. I wish to share some takes on Germanic Religion every now and then, i.e. theological takes, religious practice, that sort of stuff. This shall (occasionally) be contrasted with Platonism, or other philosophical schools. I may do some other comparisons as well. I very much love folk religion and I may occasionally explore how a formulated religion is received. I will probably post a lot of silly and funny content.